Christmas songs that aren't shit...

icu81b4

Silent Night on Acoustic 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=62Z6tPKzw_k&si=OAna2dU-gvTSKd3Q

dcg

Charles Brown: Merry Christmas Baby... great song IMHO, with fab Johnny Moore guitar. 'Well, I haven't had a drink this morning, but I'm all lit up like a Christmas tree...'

NicoAdie

https://youtu.be/a8qE6WQmNus?si=wJykLMUK2ax5IArn

Must Be Santa by Bob Dylan

I’m partial to Step Into Christmas by Elton John too…

Grangousier

The ones that work best as songs are the American standards - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas or The Christmas Song (a.k.a. Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) or even Winter Wonderland. Pure cheese, but very well-written cheese. Because of what they are you can do anything you like to them, but if it's a more modern Christmas song people are more attached to a particular version. 

ICBM

Christmas Time Is Here by Steve Vai.




No, not really. I doubt most of your audience would have a clue what it is even if you could play it.

Of the modern Christmas songs I really like One More Sleep by Leona Lewis... I expect some of you will laugh . It's got quite a 60s Phil Spector/Motown feel to it and might work well on acoustic guitar.

Paul_C

TheBigDipper

thecolourbox said:

I find that greg Lake one particularly cringey to listen to whereas i can ignore most xmas music, just goes to show the variety of taste I suppose

My understanding of it changed after I was asked to play it at a Christmas gig a couple of years ago. Pete Sinfields lyrics are quite anti-Christmas, not pro. There's a lot of disappointment in there. 

Sporky

Medicine's Christmas Song is an experience. I'm not sure how well it'd translate to acoustic.

fretmeister

That will do it.

Teetonetal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKk-2Pu2N8g

prowla

It's November and I'l already hiding from Christmas songs!

I was in a shop yesterday and there was one on that I thought was OK, but I can't remember what it was.

The Greg Lake one also makes me cringe, we played Last Christmas in a band I was in and I never much liked it then.

The Slade and Wizzard are fun, The Pretenders one is quite evocative, the NYPD choir one makes me nostalgic for my NY roots ('cept I've never been there).

Rocker

icu81b4 said:

Silent Night on Acoustic 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=62Z6tPKzw_k&si=OAna2dU-gvTSKd3Q

When I suggested Silent Night, this kind of interpretation was exactly what NOT to play.  Sing it accompanied by simple finger style chords, the simpler the better.

thecolourbox

TheBigDipper said:

thecolourbox said:

I find that greg Lake one particularly cringey to listen to whereas i can ignore most xmas music, just goes to show the variety of taste I suppose

My understanding of it changed after I was asked to play it at a Christmas gig a couple of years ago. Pete Sinfields lyrics are quite anti-Christmas, not pro. There's a lot of disappointment in there. 

Yeah I know what it's about, if anything that just makes it more cringey to me to be honest! I'm sure he enjoyed the dichotomy of making a commercial christmas product with lyrics which are against the commercial christmas products but it just seems really lame. Also i don't like the tune, his snarly singing voice, nor the ploddy use of Prokofiev without the best bit of the original composition (the rhythm of the accompaniment), nor the arrangement. And the video makes me feel really uncomfortable

Stuckfast

There are lots of great traditional carols. The Holly & The Ivy, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and I Saw Three Ships among the most obvious -- there are lots of alternative tunes to the well-known ones.

Blueingreen

Grangousier said:

The ones that work best as songs are the American standards - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas or The Christmas Song (a.k.a. Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) or even Winter Wonderland. Pure cheese, but very well-written cheese. Because of what they are you can do anything you like to them, but if it's a more modern Christmas song people are more attached to a particular version. 

Also there’s a better chance they’ll bring back nostalgic memories of childhood, rather than memories of being in supermarkets last December or the year before.

VimFuego

thecolourbox said:

TheBigDipper said:

thecolourbox said:

I find that greg Lake one particularly cringey to listen to whereas i can ignore most xmas music, just goes to show the variety of taste I suppose

My understanding of it changed after I was asked to play it at a Christmas gig a couple of years ago. Pete Sinfields lyrics are quite anti-Christmas, not pro. There's a lot of disappointment in there. 

Yeah I know what it's about, if anything that just makes it more cringey to me to be honest! I'm sure he enjoyed the dichotomy of making a commercial christmas product with lyrics which are against the commercial christmas products but it just seems really lame. Also i don't like the tune, his snarly singing voice, nor the ploddy use of Prokofiev without the best bit of the original composition (the rhythm of the accompaniment), nor the arrangement. And the video makes me feel really uncomfortable

well that's you getting a lump of coal from father Vimas!

thecolourbox

VimFuego said:

thecolourbox said:

TheBigDipper said:

thecolourbox said:

I find that greg Lake one particularly cringey to listen to whereas i can ignore most xmas music, just goes to show the variety of taste I suppose

My understanding of it changed after I was asked to play it at a Christmas gig a couple of years ago. Pete Sinfields lyrics are quite anti-Christmas, not pro. There's a lot of disappointment in there. 

Yeah I know what it's about, if anything that just makes it more cringey to me to be honest! I'm sure he enjoyed the dichotomy of making a commercial christmas product with lyrics which are against the commercial christmas products but it just seems really lame. Also i don't like the tune, his snarly singing voice, nor the ploddy use of Prokofiev without the best bit of the original composition (the rhythm of the accompaniment), nor the arrangement. And the video makes me feel really uncomfortable

well that's you getting a lump of coal from father Vimas!

Haha bah humbug to it all! That's the beauty of differing tastes though I suppose

Ironically, my Christmas Song is pretty much based on a similar mix of jovial music and grumpy lyrics with no short amount of plagiarism. You are all welcome to cover it if you wish - sadly my only Christmas music gig is playing piano in an art gallery so I don't think i can sing most of the lines in it

TheBigDipper

thecolourbox said:

TheBigDipper said:

thecolourbox said:

I find that greg Lake one particularly cringey to listen to whereas i can ignore most xmas music, just goes to show the variety of taste I suppose

My understanding of it changed after I was asked to play it at a Christmas gig a couple of years ago. Pete Sinfields lyrics are quite anti-Christmas, not pro. There's a lot of disappointment in there. 

Yeah I know what it's about, if anything that just makes it more cringey to me to be honest! I'm sure he enjoyed the dichotomy of making a commercial christmas product with lyrics which are against the commercial christmas products but it just seems really lame. Also i don't like the tune, his snarly singing voice, nor the ploddy use of Prokofiev without the best bit of the original composition (the rhythm of the accompaniment), nor the arrangement. And the video makes me feel really uncomfortable

OK! Just a couple of minor things, then! :-) TBH, I didn't find it a pleasant experience to play, either, even once I read the lyrics properly. The people in the audience weren't getting the underlying message - and why would they, they weren't looking to diss Xmas, but to celebrate it - so they just sang along and smiled. 

hollywoodrox

Paul_C said:

You don’t have to play this, as soon as you see the picture you can hear it in your head 
not one of my favourites but only because it was a year when I was a kid about 7 & wasn’t settled where I was living 

hollywoodrox

I like the Greg lake one it sounds very Christmassy & was popular when I was 8 living in a place I loved . I never actually thought about the lyrics til I was a lot older but it still didn’t spoil it as it was already lodged in my mind as Christmas along with in Dulce jubilee & on horseback by Mike oldfield & of course all the usual ones . Next year we were living somewhere else that was really good and bionic Santa was very popular with its B side of uphill bicycle ride , both got played on the pub jukebox loads ,along with Johnny Mathis , Mud , oldfield  etc  it was a bikers pub in Oakham too in 76. Great days